Mali charges editor jailed for publishing critical story

Lagos, Nigeria, March 19, 2013--A journalist in Mali was charged on
Monday with incitement to mutiny and publishing false information in connection
with his publication of an article that was critical of a former coup leader,
according to news reports.

Boukary Daou, a top editor for the daily Le Républicain, has been in custody since March 6, according to news reports. He was held incommunicado by State Security for eight days before being handed over to the Judicial Investigation Brigade of the police. If convicted, the journalist faces a maximum prison sentence of three years and fine of 150 million CFA francs, Assane Koné, editor-in-chief of Le Républicain, told CPJ. His lawyers have filed a petition seeking his release on bail pending trial. His next court date is scheduled for April 16, Koné said.

Daou was arrested the day his paper published an open letter from a purported Malian army
officer to President Dioncounda Traoré. In the letter, the officer, identified
as Cpt. Touré, protested a financial compensation package offered to Amadou
Haya Sanogo, who had led a coup
on March 22, 2012, but had recently been nominated to reform and lead Mali's
security forces. The writer questioned why a former coup leader was being rewarded
and threatened to stop fighting if the government did not withdraw the package.

Sanogo had ceded
power to Traoré's government three weeks after the 2012 coup, which
precipitated instability in the country as ethnic Tuareg separatists and
Al-Qaeda-linked militants seized half the country.

"We condemn the decision by a Malian judge to criminally prosecute
journalist Boukary Daou for publishing an opinion critical of a public policy,"
said CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita from New York. "We urge the
public prosecutor to abandon charges that criminalize press freedom and freedom
of expression. Daou should be released pending trial."

President Traoré said Daou's detention was part of the
current state of emergency in Mali, which gives the government and local
authorities sweeping powers of search, seizure, and arrest in the name of
national security, according to news reports.

Mali's press corps had staged a nationwide news blackout to protest Daou's
arrest. The blackout was lifted on Friday, but a media boycott of coverage
of all government institutions
remained in place, according to Koné.